Get the Right Privacy and Security in Google Chrome

Wednesday, May 04, 2016

chrome,security,privacy

Google’s famous browser, Chrome, boasts about having an above average security system with a variety of options. You can toggle to get just the right amount of privacy you need and make sure all your information is safely secured.

Google Chrome was designed for much more than just a speedy browser. Chrome offers advanced security features to all its users with a very safe browsing experience. It also gives you the option of controlling what information you wish to share online and which information you want to keep private.

Even though Google Chrome sends all personal data to Google by default, you can easily opt out of it. You may lose some of Google Chrome’s advanced features if you chose to disable the options, but if you think your privacy is worth it, no one will stop you.

Most security and privacy settings however, are not as obvious as they’re supposed to be. This article will provide you with a brief overview about the most prominent security features and how you can access and toggle the settings to get your optimal security.

The configuration settings discussed here will be based on getting Chrome to provide a much reduced ground for malicious software and web pages to attack on. Even though no guarantee can be given if these settings will work for you, since everyone on the INTERNET has unique information to deal with and a different view point on how it should be dealt with.

The first thing you need to know is that Chrome allows you to create multiple user profiles for all the users each with different settings according to the individual’s preferences. Since having an increased privacy and security system will not allow you complete, or in some cases, any access of certain websites, you may find it helpful to create a couple of user profiles. One profile, for example could be used when you’re dealing with strictly private information and want a completely secured browsing setting. The other profile, may be much less secure, allowing gained access to websites when you’re not much worried about privacy. The option of multiple user profiles will allow you quick and easy switching between your settings depending on the type of surfing you want to do.

The first step you need to do is create a user profile. When you have created the profile you will see a new window open up and the picture you choose will be shown at the top right corner. This profile will be highly secured and privacy sensitive. Chrome will probably ask you to sign in to Google – don’t. When you sign in to Google Chrome with your Gmail address, it is called Chrome Sync. Chrome Sync is actually quite a convenient feature which syncs settings with all of your devices on which you have signed in with the same address. You may prefer signing in on your regular profile, but it is suggested that you opt out of signing in for your secure profile.

The next step is to go to the setting page in Chrome and click on the “Show Advanced Settings” at the bottom of the page. You can scroll down to the Privacy section and modify your settings by checking or un-checking the multiple options you can see, according to your own personal requirements.

All of the options you can see actually allow Chrome to send out more traffic to the network, apart from the “Do Not Track” option. Even though some of the traffic is encrypted it becomes a major candidate to un-check for increased security. If you want to read more about this search for Chrome Privacy White-paper to get all the details. You also need to carefully consider disabling all the phishing and malware protections.

Next, in the Privacy section, you will also see a “Content Settings” option. Click on it and change any further settings you wish to. More specifically, you can change the site data and cookies settings by checking “Block third party cookies and site data”. So basically, when you are on a website and there are ads on it, those ads cannot set any new cookies or site data for your browser. The “Keep local data only until I quit my browser” will prompt the browser to delete any locally-stored data like the HTML5 LocalStorage or cookies, as soon as you close Google Chrome. This option is quite similar to another one of Chrome’s features called the “Incognito Window” but is not to be mistaken as the same thing.

When you scroll down further in the Content Setting, you will see many more options to enhance your privacy and security. Some of the ones you may like to know about include blocking JavaScript by selecting the option of “Do not allow any site to run JavaScript”. But don’t worry, you can still enable JavaScript on the HTTPS pages of your choice by clicking on “Manage Exceptions” and entering the website URL’s in the given field. This will allow you full access to websites you trust and require JavaScript functionality from like Twitter or Facebook.

After this, you can block all the plug-ins and disallow all the external protocol handlers by choosing their respective options from the settings. The “Click to play” option will allow you to run a plug-in if you trust the site, by clicking on it. However, it’s still better to choose “Block all” and right click, instead of left click, the plug in when you want to run one.

More options you may want to try for gained security are as follows:

Disable location service and desktop notifications

Disable sites to take over the mouse cursor.

Do not allow automatic downloads and turn off the un-sandboxed plug-ins

Do not remember form entries and passwords

Disable automatic language detection

Disable certificate revocation

And finally, you can go to chrome://plugins to disable any plug-ins you do not feel secure with or you do not need.